Friday, February 12, 2016

One of my Australian correspondents who works as a counsellor shares the following experience:

Over many years of working amongst severe feminists I have occasionally had false accusations or insinuations made of me, and seen other men accused too, some having their careers ruined.

Most accusations occur after a disagreement or having to correct or reprimand a feminist, to which her common response is to falsely claim she was physically intimidated or threated. Men prefer to be corrected privately, and so do sensible women, and I always do that, but I have learnt to always correct feminists and hung-up women in front of sensible women. Of course then the feminist complains she is being humiliated in front of others, but that's better than me being accused of threatening violence.

The most comical incident was once when reaching out to a clock-on-card and a nurse beside me leapt in front of me and ran her neck straight into my extended arm, pushing her throat into the crook of my elbow and instantly grabbing my arm and wrapping it around her neck as if she was being choked. She even made choking noises. I freed my arm and stepped back.

She pretended to stagger a bit, clutched her throat and gave me a filthy look as if I had just tried to kill her. Then just as suddenly she straightened up and strutted off down the corridor doing her best assertive feminist walk and went off to work her shift. I never heard anything further about the incident, and although I recorded it for my own record, I did not report it. It was as if an irresistible impulse had momentarily overcome her.

Needless to say I was very careful around her after that. As an amusing follow up, a year or two later I was coming out of an Art Gallery having just seen a historical military display. She was standing outside looking very uptight and sour indeed. I said hello and asked her if she was here to see the display. With a sneer she said her husband was viewing the display, then with an air of snotty superiority added that she was "not into violence".

Via email

Feminist correctness

The intolerant Left, once again. A young feminist reports:

Young progressive women are being targeted and insulted in this election, and not by the men, the pro-lifers, or the Republicans. Over and over again, older women who have fought hard for our rights are shaming young women who disagree with them.

The women’s movement taught us to do our homework, form opinions, and stick up for our beliefs. We learned to feel capable, intelligent, and confident in our convictions. Yet if our conclusions lead us to be critical of Hillary Clinton, we are dismissed or demeaned by these same women who taught us to be independent thinkers.

Young women are struggling with this election. We are discussing the issues, policies, and politics of it all, and we are landing in different camps. We will not tolerate being insulted by the same women who claim that we are equals. The last thing the women’s movement needs is to alienate young women by shaming us into doing what we’re told, instead of empowering us to do what we feel is right. We respect and appreciate all that older members of the women’s movement have done for us, and ask them to please speak to us as the educated and engaged young women they’ve raised us to be.

Old-school feminists are not happy with young women these days. Seemingly commenting on why some young women favor Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton, feminist icon Gloria Steinem explained it is because they were thinking, “Where are the boys?”

Clinton supporter Madeleine Albright also is none too happy with “women who don’t help out other women” (presumably those who do not support Clinton), suggesting there’s a “special place in hell” waiting for them if they don’t.

What’s going on here? One explanation is that younger women are tired of their Baby Boom parents (and grandparents) scolding them for being ideologically impure. Most millennials are socially liberal, but they also don’t like being lectured constantly about how to think and behave.

They have been told for a very long time that feminism is defined by a very strict set of rules, and if they fall short, well, there’s Albright’s special place waiting for them.

Talk about sounding like an old fire and brimstone preacher!

But there’s something else going on as well. There’s a civil war brewing inside the church of radical multiculturalism. The proliferation of specially protected groups is getting awfully confusing, and battles are breaking out over power and privilege in the ranks.

As I explain in my upcoming book, “The Closing of the Liberal Mind: How Groupthink and Intolerance Define the Left,” it has to do with a complete misunderstanding of equality:

"In practice, identity and equality work against each other. The more the former is pushed, the more the doctrine of equality is Balkanized. It becomes a contest between competing demands for recognition and privilege. For example, when feminist-lesbian activists take umbrage at a transgender man trying to transform himself into a woman (as a feminist did in The New York Times op-ed), they reveal they are more concerned about who gets to decide what those identities are than about the principle of equality.

Even Germaine Greer, the Australian-born icon and inspiration for many of America’s most ardent feminists, is being called “transphobic” for questioning transgenderism. The lesbian feminist wants full equality with men, but only for those who are actually born female. For all the talk of equality defined by identity, in the face of transgenderism some feminists are forced into a separatist position—i.e., to defend what makes them distinct. Separatism is the only line of defense left against transgender men who are encroaching on their territory.

The same thing is happening in black identity politics. At the University of Missouri and elsewhere, black activist students are demanding a “black only healing space” devoid of white people. In other words, diametrically contrary to the once civil rights dream of racial integration, they are demanding racial separation.

This appeal to separatism is no accident. It’s built into the logic of radical multiculturalism, especially in its offshoot, identity politics. The claim is not about the equality of identical things, like, for example, that a woman or black person should be treated equally because they are equal human beings (as opposed to being merely black or female).

Rather, it is about pretending that things that are fundamentally different should be treated by society as if they were exactly the same. For example, gay activists lobby to change our perceptions of marriage precisely because the same-sex relationship is not the same thing as a traditional marriage. We must pretend as if it were the same for the sake of “equality,” but gay marriage is not about two similar things being unfairly treated as different. It’s about relabeling dissimilar things as identical.

Ultimately, the casualty of such thinking is not only the corruption of the concept of equality, at least as it has been understood for centuries by liberal thinkers. It is also the abolition of humanity as a commonly shared identity.

Civil rights used to be about striving for a common humanity. Radical multiculturalism is the opposite. It means to break humanity down into competing gender, racial, and sexual preference groups and then to pretend that our humanity is defined only by our membership in that singular group. Nothing could be farther from how civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. viewed equality. To him, black people were deserving of equality because they were human beings, not because they were black.

In order to make this new social fiction work, we need to use the power of law and the administrative state to force the new social reality on society. And it is precisely in that action that the competition for power and privilege becomes a source not of liberation, but of coercion.

As I further explain in The Closing of the Liberal Mind:

"Without a respect for all human beings, regardless of their place in the identity pecking order, it is fairly easy, even necessary, to separate people into winners and losers in a power game. The next step is obvious and even inevitable: a prison for the losers"

The spectre of the gender wars has been invoked in Senate estimates this morning after a line of questioning by new Labor senator Katy Gallagher resulted in a spat between her and government minister Mitch Fifield in which she accused him of "mansplaining".

Senator Gallagher was asking about the status of social security legislation the day after Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister and whether there was any change to the introduction of bills, with Senator Fifield explaining that these were matters for the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

The argument went on, with Senator Gallagher rephrasing the question a number of times.

"Thanks for the mansplaining," she said toward the end of the first session of Community Affairs estimates.

"Imagine if I said you were womansplaining," Senator Fifield said, before adding she was being "sexist".

Senator Gallagher said his answers had been "patronising and condescending".

"I thought we were having a good-hearted exchange, I just find it extraordinary that you or any senator at this table would seek to invoke gender in impugning how a senator is responding," Senator Fifield said. "Let the record show that Senator Gallagher thinks it is appropriate to refer to a senator as mansplaining.

"I am appalled, quite frankly. I am not endeavouring here to give a cabinet handbook description of the legislative process. Take a good look at yourself.

"If I said to a female senator you are womansplaining, stop being a hypocrite, conduct yourself appropriately for this place. Hypocrisy, thy name is Labor."

A CONFRONTATION over a Donald Trump sticker on a US university campus erupted after a student threatened to smash a classmate’s computer over her allegiance to The Donald.

A physical fightbroke out on the Queens campus of St John’s University yesterday after the student posted a photo to Twitter of a woman with a “Trump Make America Great Again” sticker on her laptop and asked his followers to share the image. “7000 retweets and i’ll smash this b---h’s computer,” the student wrote in the post, which ended up being almost 16,000 times.

The Trump supporter in the picture complained to the school’s public safety office, according to another student, the New York Daily News reported.

A short time later the two ran into one another in a hallway and a fight broke out over the tweet, students told the paper..

The tweeter, who uses the name OCK PAPI on the site, then punched the woman in the chest, one student alleged. Friends reported that the woman tossed a cup of coffee at him during the heated exchange.

It was unclear if there were any injuries related to the confrontation. “It was just a Trump sticker,” the sophomore said.

St John’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the school did post a statement on Twitter. It is understood assault charges against the student, whose Twitter account has since been suspended, may be pursued.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

A face of Leftist hate: Cory Booker, (D-NJ)

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Leftist logic: There are allegedly no distinctions between groups of humans, yet we're still supposed to celebrate diversity.

Identity politics is a form of racism

'White Privilege'. .. Oh yes. .. That was abundant in the Irish potato famines. ... And in the Scottish Highland Clearances. ...And in transportations to Australia. ... And in Workhouses. ... 'White privilege' was absolutely RIFE!

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

One may say that the person who gets in trouble with drugs is just as dumb without them

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

Islamic terrorism isn’t a perversion of Islam. It’s the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism.

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here